Paradigms of International Human Rights Law

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth

Explores the legal, ethical, and other policy consequences of three core structural features of international human rights law

Explains the types of individual, corporate, and state duties available

Evaluates how substantive rights and nondiscrimination rights are used to protect similar values through different channels

Discusses negative and positive human right paradigms by dispelling a common misconception about positive rights

Paradigms of International Human Rights Law

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth

Description

Paradigms of International Human Rights Law explores the legal, ethical, and other policy consequences of three core structural features of international human rights law: the focus on individual rights instead of duties; the division of rights into substantive and nondiscrimination categories; and the use of positive and negative right paradigms. Part I explains the types of individual, corporate, and state duties available, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating each type of duty into the world public order, with special attention to supplementing individual rights with explicit individual and state duties. Part II evaluates how substantive rights and nondiscrimination rights are used to protect similar values through different channels; summarizes the nondiscrimination right in international practice; proposes refinements; and explains how the paradigms synergize. Part III discusses negative and positive paradigms by dispelling a common misconception about positive rights, and then justifies and defines the concept of negative rights, justifies positive rights, and concludes with a discussion of the ethical consequences of structuring the human rights system on a purely negative paradigm. For each set of alternatives, the author analyzes how human rights law incorporates the paradigms, the technical legal implications of the various alternatives, and the ethical and other policy consequences of using each alternative while dispelling common misconceptions about the paradigms and considering the arguments justifying or opposing one or the other.

Chapter 5 - Are Negative and Positive Distinct and Meaningful Categories? A. The Conventional Distinction Between Negative and Positive Rights 1. Common Definitions 2. The Basis for the Negative and Positive Distinction B. What Makes a Right Negative? C. Can There Even Be Negative Rights? D. The Concept of "Basic" Positive Rights

Paradigms of International Human Rights Law

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth

Author Information

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth is Professor of Law and the Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University. He specializes in public international law, international human rights law, international legal theory, and international business transactions. He serves on the Board of Directors of the International Law Association (American Branch), where he is also Director of Studies and Chair of the International Human Rights Committee. He has published widely inter alia in public international law, international legal theory, and international human rights law. He authored a coursebook entitled Law of International Business Transactions (now in its second edition, 2011). He co-authored (with Maurice Horwitz) the Guide to Latin in International Law (Oxford, 2009).

Paradigms of International Human Rights Law

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth

Reviews and Awards

"International human rights law remains woefully under-theorized as a discipline that is neither reducible to ethical theorizing on human rights or doctrinal work on a branch of international law. Paradigms of International Human Rights Law sinks its teeth into some of the questions barely below the surface, and it does so with intellectual gusto, flair and ambition, while in the process uncovering many of the founding dilemmas the discipline did not know it had." -Frédéric Mégret, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Law of Human Rights & Legal Pluralism, and William Dawson Scholar at the McGill University Faculty of Law

"Through a compelling and rigorous analysis of human rights instruments, jurisprudence and scholarship, Fellmeth systematically deconstructs some of the core concepts of the field (rights, duties, non-discrimination, positive versus negative rights and duties). In so doing, he unmasks the diversity, structural complexity and moral underpinnings of human rights law, while identifying important areas where we might expect decision-makers in this twenty-first century to do much, much more." -Sean D. Murphy, Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law, George Washington University, and Member, United Nations International Law Commission